Random: Here's How Nintendo's Bowser Gag Went Down In Japan, Where He's Known As Koopa

LOL! They made the skit work in all countries. Nice!

I nearly crapped my pants when I saw that original, fresh joke about Doug Bowser's name. " Great Work Nintendo" /obvious sarcasm/

Right forgot he's not called bowser in Japan

Now it's going to be so BORING.

Honestly, on my first watch of the English presentation I thought that they held the gag too long and the comedic timing was off. But now that I see it in Japanese, the text boxes appearing actually makes the scene flow more smoothly. Kudos, annonymous E3 script writer person.

I'll always call him King Koopa.

How did it go down? Seems to me like not very well, seeing as if you have to explain/translate why a joke should be seen as a joke... well, you'll get the idea...

That's basically like standup comedy don'ts 101...

@KingKRoolMain You must be real fun at parties. I for one enjoyed the silliness (however obvious). Nintendo, don't ever stop the Bowser jokes.

Would've been funnier if Bowser still had the ability to talk, as he did in Super Mario Sunshine. But hey, I still got a chuckle.

Thought it was funny! I hope that Bowser personality makes it way to the movie in the future. I'm sure it still took him awhile to find the exit.

@KingKRoolMain - The joke was rather cringy, they overplayed it big time.
The video editor of these Directs really needs to tighten things up. Even the finger-snapping shots linger a bit too long and the executive is left staring at the camera with his fingers in the air 😶

I know someone called Doug cooper, different spelling and a not even the same side of the world but I've got a smile on my face he won't understand

It would have been funny if they just called him Doug Koopa in Japan

So, serious question: Has anyone tried giving Doug a Super Crown? Asking for a friend.

@swagbag713 if Bowser can't fill your gaping hole then I'm not sure if it'll ever be. 😬

Doug Bowser is legally obliged to change his middle name to Koopa so this joke can work in all countries across the world.

@wollywoo
I am fun at parties. Everyone cheers when I arrive. They would yell, who are you! What are you doing in my house! Get out of here!

Even though I've seen the joke used plenty of times online this was his first Direct, so I can appreciate them using the joke as his introduction to the wider world of gaming. Now that it's out of the way they can move onto bigger and better jokes in the future.

@KingKRoolMain especially with that mask on. 😯

@KingKRoolMain

It was still great fun even if I did see it coming.

@avocadopear It would have been funny if they just called him Doug Koopa in Japan

Shigeru Miyamoto will now be referred to in the west as 'Bob Jones'.

"I bet this joke didn't land very well with the Japanese audience."

-Me, literally just like 4 or 5 hours ago as I was watching reaction videos

Just watching your Thanos avatar @ThanosreXXX makes me imagine others possible jokes, related to Avengers, just when King Bowser is about to snap to present a game (a game like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3), before beeing interrupted, but maybe that's just me

My students are always surprised and confused with the name changes for Mario characters. Almost always someone asks why some names are different and others aren't.

I usually just shrug and say "because Nintendo".

I've always assumed his full name was Bowser Koopa, and am a bit surprised they haven't tried to just make that official and international. I also assumed Princess Peach had the last name of Toadstool. I've seen other companies try to reconcile their two audiences with common names, I wonder if Nintendo will ever follow suit.

The movie Airplane! was released in Japan. I wonder how they localized “Surely you can’t be serious!” and Leslie Nielson’s response “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley!” in Japanese.

They should’ve hired Mike Kinopio from Cleveland to be the President.

@ThanosReXXX The Joker (to Harley Quinn): If you have to explain a joke, then it's not a joke at all!

Yeah, I get the issue with that, but I think in this case it's better to explain the joke than drop the segment altogether.

This is what happens when you're watching anime subbed or manga and there's a pun that can't be translated.
But you can still find it amusing sometimes.
Personally, the version we got had me in stitches!
Seeing Bowser trying to talk VERY fast was a treat!
And then he was so confused and awkward afterwards. It was priceless~
You can't blame them for using that joke at least once in a Direct, especially Bowser's first one at E3 at that!

It's funny because as kids in our house playing Mario Bros 1,2 & 3 I'm sure the manual refers to him as king Koopa. We always called him Koopa as he was the biggest baddest of the Koopa troopers.

I do recall feeling confused during the n64 era as they started calling him Bowser on tv ads. Now I feel like I need to check the game manuals tonight after work to figure it out.

Have fun with it, perhaps some are over-analyzing (dissecting) the skit. Nice E3 presentation & good job Mr. Bowser.

@Don
They simply used the command "/ban"

@NEStalgia No. Now stop.

Fun fact, Koopa was named after a Korean dish. Why, I don't know lol.

@KingKRoolMain to be fair, for mainstream watchers, they totally don't know that guy. so it was the official introduction to the normies

@Pat84 Actually, that isn't even half as bad as you seem to think it is. Just imagine, if they had put that gag in the Direct, when they showed the Ultimate Alliance clip. Would have been very fitting, if you ask me. Nice idea.

@BulbasaurusRex Yeah, I understand why they kept it in, but still.
It almost makes me think of what happens when you're with a group of friends, and everybody's laughing at something, and you're just standing there, not understanding, until someone says those magic words "ah, you just had to be there, then you would have understood".

I can hardly imagine the Japanese viewers laughing or smiling at that joke, because their Koopa is called Bowser over here. But in other ways, it is quite typically Nintendo, to have handled it in such a manner, so ultimately, it's fitting after all...

@Heavyarms55 Not just Nintendo. It happens with a lot of characters in games and TV shows. Just look up the actual names of the Transformers, and you'll see that they've changed up quite a few of them for the Western market. No idea why, the original names sounded just fine to me, but because I've always known the Western versions of the names, the original ones now sound weird and "off" to me.

@Vectorman The two audiences are the Japanese speaking people and the English speaking people. Officially, Princess Peach is just that, there is no Toadstool in her name. A few English releases used Toadstool, but that still isn't her name. All I was saying is that Nintendo could embrace it, and officially name the characters "Bowser Koopa" and "Peach Toadstool" and whoever else, just so, minimally, the main characters are aligned internationally.

@Vectorman
Meh.

@Vectorman That's easy to explain. It's not Nintendo, nor a Nintendo video. While there have been a few official game translations that use "Toadstool" (including Mario 64), the official name by Nintendo is "Peach" and only "Peach".